BC Conservatives United Despite Dissent, Says Rustad

As the B.C. Conservative party heads into a major meeting this weekend, leader John Rustad insists the party is united despite a public disagreement on residential schools and five MLAs breaking with their party to vote against an NDP motion opposing proposed Trump tariffs.

“At the end of the day we said we would have free votes and we would be supporting people to be able to have free speech, and that’s what this looks like,” Rustad said Tuesday morning. “What family in this province doesn’t have issues and divisions in it? The question is what is it that unites us, not what is it that divides us, in terms of these issues.”

The differences between Conservatives over tariffs became public thanks to an NDP motion that Coquitlam-Maillardville MLA Jennifer Blatherwick put forward Monday morning saying the house “condemns President Donald Trump’s proposed tariffs as wrong and unjustified measures aimed at threatening Canadian sovereignty.”

It endorsed a Team Canada response of proportionate retaliatory action if necessary, “including strategically targeting industries and regions such as products from Republican states, to maximize pressure to deter President Trump from implementing or continuing tariffs.”

When it came to a vote, most MLAs voted in favour, including veteran Conservatives who identified the motion as a trap.

But “nays” came from Vancouver-Quilchena MLA Dallas Brodie, Heather Maahs from Chilliwack North, Brent Chapman from Surrey South, Jordan Kealy from Peace River North and Tara Armstrong from Kelowna-Lake Country-Coldstream.

The NDP was quick to criticize the Conservatives’ division on the motion.

“We were trying to show unity, which is what Canadians want,” said Ravi Kahlon, the minister of housing and municipal affairs and MLA for Delta North. “People from British Columbia sent them to the legislature, not Donald Trump. I appreciate that they like to fly the MAGA flags and wear the MAGA hats on their spare time, but right now it’s Team Canada and they need to put the Canada flag on.”

Maahs said all B.C. Conservative speakers “ripped” the motion, but some MLAs felt more strongly about it and had to decide for themselves how their constituents would want them to vote.

The difference was not a sign of any revolt in the party, she said. “We’re all proud members of the Conservative Party of British Columbia and I’m so proud to have John Rustad as our leader who actually gives us a voice.”

Kealy said that as a farmer he is opposed to any tariffs since they increase the cost of living and make it harder for farms to survive. “I’m completely against the tariffs, but I want to see better diplomacy from our leaders when it comes to other countries and our strongest trading partners.”

Chapman said that while he opposes the proposed tariffs, it is a mistake for the province to indicate too early what it might do in retaliation and he worries it would make B.C. a target. “What I was against was signalling that we’re going to go after Republican states and what that could bring back on British Columbia.”

The Conservative division on tariffs came as caucus members aired dramatically different views on residential schools on the social media platform X.

It began Saturday with Brodie writing, “The number of confirmed child burials at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School site is zero.... No one should be afraid of the truth. Not lawyers, their governing bodies, or anyone else.”

The context was a libel lawsuit between lawyer James Heller and the Law Society of British Columbia related to how training materials should describe what was found at the site in 2021. The law society materials call it “an unmarked burial site containing the bodies of 215 children,” but Heller has pressed to include qualifiers like “potential,” “possible” or “suspected.”

Rustad said the horrors of residential schools cannot be denied and that he was concerned Brodie’s posts could be misinterpreted as denying the whole issue, rather than about the fact no graves or bodies had been confirmed at that particular site.

Rustad asked her to remove the posts, but she declined.

“The stand I’m taking is rooted in the need for truth, and I don’t think standing for truth takes away anything from the severity of what happened at the residential schools,” Brodie said. “In fact I believe that more truth is better, it makes their case actually better. I’m a lawyer. I believe in truth, evidence and pursuit of truth, and I think lawyers should be allowed to ask questions.”

The Union of BC Indian Chiefs condemned the posts and called on Brodie to apologize “for promoting abhorrent rhetoric which minimizes the harms of Residential Schools and for misleading and emboldening the public against Indigenous people.”

Similar criticism came from within the B.C. Conservative caucus, with house leader and Chilliwack-Cultus Lake MLA Á’a:líya Warbus writing on X, “Inform yourself, get the latest facts, research AND talk to survivors.”

“Questioning the narratives of people who lived and survived these atrocities, is nothing but harmful and taking us backward in reconciliation,” she wrote.

Warbus declined to confirm that her post was in direct response to Brodie, saying that Brodie’s activity on social media is between her and Rustad.

“I want the topic of reconciliation to focus on the survivors that are still with us and anything that’s going to trigger a response from them that’s negative and that’s going to take us away from the path of reconciliation is not conducive to the work that we need to do with First Nations communities and Indigenous communities across British Columbia,” Warbus said. “There’s already enough animosity and division and we need to continue working together.”

It’s up to Rustad to take a critical look at division in the party, Warbus said. “Those are his decisions and his calls to make and where he wants my advice on what to do about those things he’ll come to me and ask me, and he hasn’t.”

Divisions in the party have been on display previously. On Dec. 13, MLAs wrote a letter to Rustad condemning Surrey-Cloverdale MLA Elenore Sturko’s public comments about the resignation of Vancouver Police Board vice-chair Comfort Sakoma-Fadugba.

Bruce Banman, the MLA for Abbotsford South and the B.C. Conservative whip, said there will be disagreements between people in caucus.

“I think you’re going to get used to seeing that members are going to have different opinions on many different things and that’s going to be brand new for the province of British Columbia,” said Banman. “It is a new era and I would say it takes courage on behalf of John Rustad to allow MLAs to speak their conscience and to vote their conscience.”

Rustad said there are different perspectives in the party, but they are united in fighting for average people and opposing government misspending, mismanagement of the economy, fuelling of inflation and failure on health care.

The quick growth of the party is a factor, he said, reminding reporters that in the space of 18 months the Conservatives went from nothing to winning 44 seats in the legislature and nearly forming government.

“You’re going to have this sort of thing,” Rustad said. “We didn’t have time for nomination meetings, we didn’t have time for process. You’re going to have these sort of issues that come up.”

The party has an annual general meeting scheduled for this weekend in Nanaimo, where it will elect a new board and debate amendments to its constitution and policies.

The meeting does not include a leadership review, but there will be one within the year, Rustad said. He declined to predict how a review might go for him, saying that will be up to the party’s members.